Morning Rundown: Boudreau, Ducks sell hope

SAN JOSE -- The magical turnaround hasn't occurred since he's come on the scene and who knows that it ever will at this low point.

But with his team one stumble away from falling face-first into the NHL basement, Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau continues to sell the one thing that isn't easily found in any elixir.

Hope.

"We all have dreams, right?" Boudreau said Monday ahead of the Ducks' game against San Jose. "You go out every game and you hope that you can win every game. That's it. I go through the schedule and say, 'OK, we need a good 10-game win streak or a 13-game winning streak. It's easier said than done.

"Everything is possible."

The Ducks aren't mathematically out of the playoff picture and don't have the No. 1 pick in the 2012 draft locked up but their current 9-19-6 record suggests they're already on cruise control down that road and only looking for the right exit.

Consider that they'd have to go 35-10-3 to match Chicago's 44 wins and 97 points that got it the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot a year ago. But as the Ducks get back after it following the Christmas break, Boudreau is intent on making his team believe in a miracle.

"I said, 'Listen, if this was golf, we shot a 62 on the front nine. But who says we can't shoot a 36 on the back,'" he said. "That's the way you have to look at it and if you look at it any other way, then all of a sudden you're beaten before you start.

"So that's the way I'm hoping that they look at it. It's the way I'm looking at it anyway. Let's hope the best happens."

The Ducks' resident eternal optimist had a similar message after working up a sweat in the morning skate.

"Obviously we all have been waiting a long time that something's going to start working," winger Teemu Selanne said. "We're talking today that it's a new era. Let's face it. The next 15 games are going to show where we're going to be.

"We know the situation. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be very hard to make the playoffs. But you know what, who knows?

"When this team gets hot, anything can happen. Obvosly that's why this is a very critical time for us right now."

The reality is the Ducks are 16 points out of a playoff spot and would have to rip off a long winning streak just to give thoughts of a playoff run some actual legs to stand on. But the bigger message might be to make sure that those who dress every night aren't already playing out the string.

"I don't feel that they've given up hope," Boudreau said. "The minute anybody feels that way, well we don't want them around. I don't anyway. If there's ever a feeling that there's no chance or whatever, then you have a player that's not going to fight for you. And we want to fight until the bitter end.

"We've played 34 games, which means we've got 48 games left. I watched 'Moneyball' again the other day. [The Oakland A's] were in dead last place until they won 20 in a row."

Selanne said the team is beyond the shock value of being a last-place team. But then he said, "We all know that that's not the place for us. We've got to finish strong now until the end of the season."

-- What does a healthy Lubomir Visnovsky do for a team? Just ask Boudreau.

"I think when he's on top of his game, he makes our team an awful lot better," he said. "Right now in some of the games he hasn't quite been there yet consistently. When he's not there, the team struggles. But when he's on top of his game, like against L.A. [or] the first game that we played against Phoenix, he makes our team immeasurably better."

Visnovsky has just three goals and six assists in 21 games but five of those points, including two of his goals, have come in the five games he's played since recovering from a broken finger that kept him out of 13 contests.

"He becomes another offensive weapon on a team that doesn't have a lot of offensive weapons as far as when you look at the goals scored," Boudreau said.

-- After staying home from the Ducks' last road trip, Saku Koivu skated with his teammates on the HP Pavilion ice to further the belief that his return from a groin muscle injury could be imminent.

Koivu has sat out the last six contests with an injury that has flared up on him in each of his three seasons with the club. When asked about his possible availability against the Sharks, Boudreau said that the veteran is "the old game-time decision."

"It's hard to read him," he continued. "But he's looking pretty good out there. I think he's noncommittal to me at this stage. So that's why I'm saying game-time decision. I'll wait until he and the trainers talk this afternoon and see where it is."

-- Center Nick Bonino is getting the chance to play a top-six role in Koivu's absence as he's playing on the line with Selanne and Bobby Ryan. Bonino has been trying to break through at the NHL level for the last two seasons after proving to be a consistent point producer in the American Hockey League.

"If you give him time and space, he can make a play," Boudreau said. "He'd be the first one to tell you he's got to pick up the speed a little bit. Sometimes when you play at the American League pace and then you play [in the NHL], you pick up the speed when you play here. Your speed just picks up because you have to pick it up."

-- Here's the expected line combinations and defense pairings for the Ducks tonight against the Sharks with Jonas Hiller (8-14-5, 3.10 goals-against average, .900 save percentage):

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